For today’s Wilde Friday, I give you two of the best things in life combined into one incredible video: Oscar Wilde and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Take special note of how amazing Graham Chapman looks as Wilde. Also keep an eye out for Whistler, Bernard Shaw, and other luminaries.

As Monday was Memorial Day here in the States, I felt that the Horror Monday I had planned would best be put off for a few days. Wednesdays boast their own horrors, don’t they? (For all our lovely new readers, a sincere and warm welcome. As a note, Katherine and I like to have fun with alt-text in our images so don’t forget to mouse over the pics for random nuggets of randomness.)

Today we celebrate the work of Arthur Machen, Welsh author and mystic extraordinaire. I was introduced to him in my Victorian Gothic class back in graduate school and immediately fell in love with his engrossing and macabre tales of the supernatural. As one already bound in love to Edgar Allan Poe, Sheridan le Fanu, and Bram Stoker, Machen was a dark, delicious cherry on the top of my literary gothic cake.

The great H.P Lovecraft, in his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature“, named Machen as one of the four “modern masters” of horror (the others being Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, and M. R. James, whom I discussed in the very first Horror Monday). Lovecraft described Machen’s most famous work, The Great God Pan, in the aforementioned essay as follows: “No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds”; and that “the sensitive reader” reaches the end with “an appreciative shudder.”

The Great God Pan, published in 1894 and reproduced here in its entirety, was my first introduction to the glories of Machen. You open with the familiar, comforting strains of Victorian first-person narration and gradually get drawn into a tale of mythology versus science, ancient versus modern, known versus unknown, purity versus libido, god versus man. You find yourself growing more and more uneasy without being able to put a name to your fears; it eludes you, like the sinister Other that pervades the majority of his tales. It is a horror that creeps up on you quietly, hiding behind the smooth, engaging prose and vivid descriptions.

His fascination with his own Welsh countryside and local Roman antiquities served as fuel for his imaginative stories and his explorations into our mystical and spiritual past. His stories have a distinct preoccupation with an unknowable and ancient Other; without being explicit, Machen teases the reader into imagining unspeakable horrors and darkness just on the outer limits of our reach and understanding. He built upon fears and superstitions of the time, creating a sensation and shocking his readers by hinting at illicit sex and supernatural transgressions (i.e., “nameless infamies”) that act at the heart of the narrative’s conflict. We 21st century readers might not bat an eye at the subtle restraint of his descriptions but to a Victorian audience, it would have approached the ragged edge of obscenity. A critic for the Westminster Gazette described it as “an incoherent nightmare of sex and the supposed horrible mysteries behind it, such as might conceivably possess a man who was given to a morbid brooding over these matters, but which would soon lead to insanity if unrestrained.” (Don’t you want to read it already??) As is the norm in these cases, what enraged the critics also titillated and thrilled the Victorian reader and continues to thrill and inspire us to this day.

Wicked frontispiece art above for the Great God Pan by the inimitable Aubrey Beardsley.

Stephen King, in an interview on his personal website, described it as “one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language.” Think about that for a second and then go curl up with the Great God Pan and a warm pot of tea (or perhaps a Scotch old enough to order its own Scotch) and dive right in. I recommend the collection that first got me hooked: The Three Impostors and other Stories: Volume 1 of the Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, available right here on Amazon. Go. Now. Read. Shoo.

What a weekend! Thanks to Freshly Pressed, we have seen a dramatic increase in followers over the past couple of days. Thank you to you all – we are thrilled to have you! As an introduction to the blog for all of our new readers, we have decided to link back to a few of our favorite posts.

We mainly discuss the Victorian period – art, literature, culture, politics – with a particular focus on modern interpretations and implications and generally with our tongues lodged quite firmly in our cheeks. We have a keen interest in science and progress, and we love to feature Victorian peculiarities such as tear-catchers and vinegar valentines (one of my personal faves).

We are, however, guilty of indulging our interest in all things historical by covering other eras of history. We recently had a Colonial Week where we discussed Thomas Jefferson’s taste for wine (sometimes we actually do research!) and voted for the hottest Founding Father (and sometimes we don’t).

We both love literature and have a number of posts on 19th century works. We’ve spent some time pondering what it might be like to actually be married to some of the great Victorian romantic ideals, like Bingley, Darcy, Knightley, or Count Dracula. Generally, it’s not as great as it may seem when reading the book. We’ve also reduced great works of literature to silly mad-libs and featured some of our favorite authors.

Once again, a warm welcome to our new followers and an even warmer thank you to our existing friends in the blogosphere. We are so pleased to have found such a friendly community of like minds. Happy reading!

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.”
— Letter from Paris, dated May 1900

Some particularly pertinent Wilde Wisdom on a Friday before several major holidays in the States and in the UK. Happy holiday weekend everyone! Stay safe, hug your loved ones, and do count those chickens BEFORE they hatch. (Also take the time to admire the heck out of his outfit. Breathtaking.)

The answer to the above question is apparently so, thanks to an investigative study (abstract and select data points linked here) by the scientific journal Intelligence. Their research indicates that the intelligence levels of the average individual has suffered a substantial drop in IQ points from the late 1800’s until now. Specifically, they calculate a drop of 14.1 points between 1889 and 2004, or -1.23 IQ points per decade. WOW, folks.

To acquire this set of data, scientists measured visual reaction times with this:

Yeah, this thing. This is a Hipp chronoscope, which is used to measure short intervals of time with an accuracy of 1/1,000th of a second. According to Huff-Po, “Hipp chronoscopes were used to measure reaction time in experimental psychology labs in the late 19th Century.” Basically, you gauge how long it takes for the individual to press a button on this machine in response to a stimulus. The resulting reaction time is apparently scientifically representative of a persons mental processing speed. The downward trend in IQ points was subsequently identified by comparing reaction times between data sets taken in the 1800’s against those in more recent decades. This amounted to about 183 milliseconds to ~250ms in men, and from 187ms to ~260ms in women.

If this is the case, how do we account for this decline in reaction time? What factors have contributed to this lessening of mental acuity and speed? Can we blame this on Justin Bieber, Honey Boo-Boo, or the Kardashians?

Dr. Michael Woodley, who led the study, attributes this decline to highly intelligent individuals having less children than their less intelligent counterparts. Other scientists relate it to the fact that as individuals collected into increasingly complex societies, the need for genius in order to survive necessarily decreased as larger numbers of individuals in communities made up for any intellectual downfalls and lapses in judgement through sheer supportive numbers.

What say you, Dear Reader? Is human intelligence decreasing in direct opposition to the increase in the complexities of modern life and the advancements of modern technology? Has community and “civilized” life made us less accountable for our own intelligence, creativity, and ingenuity, thus promoting intellectual laziness and compliance? Is visual reaction time to a stimulus truly the only reasonable means to quantify human intelligence? Critical thinking is sexy so take it to the comments!

That smoldering stare! That perfect coiffure! Who is this dreamy Latin Romanticist? It’s Alvares de Azevedo, the “Brazilian Lord Byron.” Born in 1831 and living only until age 20, he wrote romantic poetry, a play, and essays, all published posthumously because of his very early death. I have never actually read anything he wrote, but I don’t think I really need to.

Ultimately, this post is an excuse to celebrate Star Trek period, but thanks to some clever work by deviantArtist Rabittooth, we can do it Victorian-style. These images made the rounds of the Internet earlier this year but seeing as Katherine and I got to enjoy Star Trek Into Benedict Cumberbatch this weekend, it seemed more than appropriate to show them off again. The dear Captain above is dashing as always.

Logical that he’d be a scientist.

Bones, you always bring the sexual healing.

“I CANNA HOLD HER TOGETHER CAP’N! I DINNA HAVE THE STEAMPOWER!11”

Uhura looks especially lovely, as always. Badass to the nth degree.

I now want a short 30 second movie of Chekov and Sulu attempting to ride these bikes. License to print money. You’re welcome, Paramount.

While Twitter has become a wildly popular new means of communication, it has not been without its critics. Questions like, “What can we say that is meaningful in 140 characters?” and “What are we losing by keeping our social interactions so brief?” have abounded since Twitter’s inception. The value of brevity, however, is not a new concept. In the late 19th and early 20th century, one of the most efficient ways to transmit important information rapidly over great distances was the telegram.

Telegram authors had an incentive to be brief – most telegram companies charged per word. As a result, authors took some common shortcuts used in the Twitterverse such as dropping pronouns and articles and using abbreviations and code words to maximize information and minimize characters. So forced brevity in communications isn’t really a new concept at all. In fact, telegrams were often used to convey life-changing news-births, deaths, war, and peace-in as few words as possible. Imagine finding out that a loved one has died in a Tweet, or worse, receiving a telegram of import redacted to the point of ambiguity. From that perspective, the criticisms of Twitter seem unnecessary, or at least, unoriginal.

In light of their similarities, I have taken the liberty to translate some famous telegrams into TweetSpeak.

Samuel Morse

Telegram: What hath God wrought?

Tweet: OMG, WTF?!?

Mark Twain

Telegram: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

Twitter: totally still alive! #YOLO

William Randolph Hearst

Telegram: You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.

Tweet: Post pix to ur instagram and Ill take it from there

Wright Brothers

Telegram: Successful four flights Thursday morning.

Tweet: w00t! Successful flight! No pix though, had to turn off phone in the air. 😦

This image almost shouldn’t have any further commentary, but here we are. Today’s Tea Tuesday focuses on Teavana’s Jasmine Oolong, which is one of my personal favorite green teas. Much like the previously mentioned Cream Earl Grey (review forthcoming), this is one of my “Work/Commute/Personal Life is Hectic and/or Bad Therefore Tea” teas. It’s one of those teas where you sit back after your first sip and go “Oh yeah. That’s good.”

As you can see from the picture, the tea is hand-rolled into tiny, aromatic pearls that unfurl as they steep. The website describes the tea as being a “[w]ell balanced infusion of crisp orchid and sweet jasmine with a clean finish.” In addition to a well-blended and rounded flavor between the soft jasmine and the oolong, it’s incredibly aromatic, so you get the added benefit of a beautiful scent as well as a lovely taste. It’s relaxation in a cup.

As you can see, it has a light yellowish-green color, which is lovely against a white bone china teacup.

Another shot, showing off my Fortnum and Mason’s teacup in its signature eau de nil design with a golden butterfly motif. SO much love here.

I get this stuff by the half pound. THAT’S how much of it we need to keep it around. Highly recommended for all times of day. It’s currently listed as out of stock on the website, but you can go to any Teavana store and find it behind the counter with all the other teas. Go up and ask for a whiff; you won’t regret it.